President Barack Obama's budget proposal for the 2016 fiscal year seeks $14 billion for cybersecurity efforts across the U.S. government to better protect federal and private networks from hacking threats. Federal cybersecurity funding has steadily increased in recent years, reflecting the intensity of threats U.S. companies and government agencies are facing from cyber intruders, both domestic and foreign. The budget, released on Monday, calls for deployment of more intrusion detection and prevention capabilities, greater sharing of data with the private sector and other countries and more funding to beef up the government's ability to respond to attacks. The funding would support several specific programs, such as monitoring and diagnostics of federal computer networks, the EINSTEIN intrusion detection and prevention system and government-wide testing and incident-response training. "Cyber threats targeting the private sector, critical infrastructure and the federal government demonstrate that no sector, network or system is immune to infiltration by those seeking to steal commercial or government secrets and property or perpetrate malicious and disruptive activity," the White House summary said. It is unclear how much funding the Republican-controlled Congress will dedicate to cybersecurity efforts during the next fiscal year.
IN-DEPTH
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--- Reuters
